Unconventional warfare shakes up the high seas

IT’S ironical that Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of the US Central Command, has described the fight against the Houthis in the Red Sea as one of the largest battles the US Navy has fought since World War II. His statement begs several questions: How strong are the Houthis on the naval front? How powerful is their command, control, communication and intelligence system? Is it any match for the prowess of the mighty US Navy, which has more than 100 overseas bases? How many submarines, aircraft carriers, battle cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and fast-attack craft are operated by the Houthi ‘naval command’? Who is their fleet commander? From where are the Houthis getting their formidable software and lethal hardware? Which ports or naval bases are they operating from?

Regrettably, there are no definitive answers to these questions — there is only the recurring mention of Iran as the mentor which is pushing the Houthi rebels to take on the perceived enemy of its ideology. Experts invariably tend to throw their hands up and say that they have never heard of any Houthi navy or armada, not to speak of the types of ships the rebels possess. If that is so, one needs to dig deep to unravel the Houthi mystery as the plot is thickening by the day.

One thing is clear: America appears rattled by the surprise attacks carried out by the ‘invisible’ enemy, although the US Navy is still technologically superior despite the reduced number of its ships. The Houthis may not have any modern boat or ship, but their ability to fire anti-ship cruise and anti-ship ballistic missiles from the shore, the sea and under the sea at command vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb and the Arabian Sea has opened a completely new vista of naval warfare.

The US Navy is facing a brand-new adversary, of a type which it is not trained to deal with and which it never expected to be so desperate and determined to take on America on the high seas through sheer surprise, deception and mobility. That’s understandable. No hi-tech aircraft carrier like USS Dwight D Eisenhower, with 5,750 sailors and 100 aircraft aboard, should be asked to fight a bunch of medieval warriors with a non-existent fleet. It’s like keeping a battle tank ready to kill mosquitoes.

Come to think of it, when were the naval superpowers of the world so busy as they suddenly are now? What’s the basic job of a navy? To guard the shoreline, fight and deter rival navies, and search, identify and fire at enemies? One wonders what’s in store for the mighty navies of the 21st century. Where or in which ocean, sea, bay, gulf, creek, estuary, strait or quay will they take on the foe, real or imaginary; and what could be the duration of the conflict and the result. While a land war is the most visible, impactful and oldest of all forms of human combat, a battle in the waters remains obscure, mysterious and invisible to most land-based soldiers and civilians.

Hence, what are the big navies supposed to do and what would the nature and pattern of the battles be? Conventionally, admirals usually train men for three types of combat to take on the enemy at sea: a decisive battle, a blockade and ‘fleet in being’ (for sea command and control or denial). When the mighty Japanese and US navies fought in the Pacific Ocean from 1941 to 1945, the battles proved to be decisive. During the Napoleonic wars, the British imposed a naval blockade on the French coast in 1806 but didn’t succeed because it was intermittent, and hence ineffective. Contrastingly, the 1971 naval blockade of Pakistan’s port of Karachi by India succeeded owing to the superiority of its ships, strategy and strength. Pakistan thereafter continues to stress more on ‘fleet in being’. Usually initiated by an inferior armada with limited mobility and firepower, ‘fleet in being’ is the way to restrict one’s act to ensure ‘sea denial’ to a stronger foe through interdiction. The idea is to inflict damage on the enemy through unconventional, unorthodox guerrilla or suicide missions.

Today’s Red Sea faceoff between Goliath (the US) and David (Houthis) resembles the ‘fleet in being’, a battle between unequals. Yet, the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Gravely, with a 340-strong crew, is having a rough time, as claimed by the combatants themselves. For that matter, USS Dwight D Eisenhower’s men are overworked and often have little time to respond despite the behemoth vessel’s Combat Information Centre being active round the clock. Mission fleet commander Rear Admiral Marc Miguez concedes that the Carrier Strike Group of Eisenhower, with four destroyers and a cruiser’s sailors, are under constant anti-ship ballistic missile threats, which they never faced before. Thus, despite the US-led international naval coalition, which was set up to protect ships passing through the Red Sea from attacks by the Houthis, there’s nothing to indicate that the situation could improve anytime soon. All around, the cacophonic calls for “war and revenge” make things more complicated for conventional fighting men suddenly facing unconventional warfare on the high seas. For India, which conducted multilateral naval exercise ‘Milan 2024’ from February 19 to 27, it’s time to fathom the fast-developing situation where ragtag fighters with sophisticated anti-ship ballistic missiles put the lives of thousands of sailors at risk. It’s like terrorists with nuclear warheads posing an existential threat to the mightiest defence forces.